


The House of Jackdaws

by kuutar (teapertti)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, M/M, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teapertti/pseuds/kuutar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the flock of jackdaws had left we usually watched together as Marco Bott from upstairs went to work. Marco was a continuous topic of discussion in our house, among politics and public welfare (or the lack of it). Not one of our neighbors could believe that someone who had a job would live in these moldy apartments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The House of Jackdaws

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Naakkojen talo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4282800) by [teapertti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teapertti/pseuds/teapertti). 



> I don't even remember how I came up it with fic. Well, at least it was nice to write about several characters. (This is a translation of the original Author Notes. To see notes on the translation, see the bottom of the page.)

The apartment building we lived in was so old and run-down that nobody, not even in times like this, wanted to move to the highest floor where the wind blew in through the windows and where there were holes in the walls. The apartment that was two floors above ours had been unoccupied already for years. Or that's one way to see it; there were loads of rats and the hollows in the walls were full of jackdaw nests. Every morning I woke up when the sun rose and they went to seek their daily meal, fluttering their wings and making loud noises. I listened to Armin opening the curtains and watching as the feathers flew down from the nests to the ground under our French balcony. He then would try to mend the broken window more tightly with a piece of duct tape.

After the flock of jackdaws had left we usually watched together as Marco Bott from upstairs went to work. Marco was a continuous topic of discussion in our house, among politics and public welfare (or the lack of it). Not one of our neighbors could believe that someone who had a job would live in these moldy apartments. I usually didn't partake in these discussions, but no one could avoid hearing them in the hallway or in the yard that extended towards the street, thanks to the thin walls. I didn't like many of my neighbors, but I found Marco Bott pleasant. Often when he returned from work he stopped to chat with us for a bit, and we had even been invited to visit his apartment. He had a tan, freckled face, a denim shirt from a chain store and black pants. He walked with long, confident steps and worked somewhere as a secretary, but he never really talked much about his job, at least not to us.

We surely wouldn't have known about the existence of Bertolt Hoover if Armin hadn't been in good terms with the mail carrier.  She was a short woman who always seemed ill-tempered to me, and had the strange habit of knocking on our door with her wrist. She used to steal the catalogue of a big department store that was intended for exclusive customers and hand it to Armin. The catalogue delighted him every time and he would read it through and look at images of food items he barely knew how to pronounce. The woman, Annie, also knew a lot of things about the people that lived in our building, for she delivered their mail. She'd know which envelope had the logo of the Internal Revenue in it and who got a lot of hand-written letters. She also told this stuff to us, but only if we bribed her with coffee. After Marco had moved to the upstairs apartment, we decided to buy good coffee with our last bit of money. That was when we got to hear that he didn't live alone.

"Bertolt Hoover has already received two letters, one hand-written and one from the social welfare office. I've seen him through the door slot, he really is there", Annie said and dunked a piece of sweet twice-baked bread into her coffee. We had to take a moment to digest that information. We hadn't seen anyone new except for Marco in the hallway, and there was no signs about the other resident, save for the claim made by Fiona the Mad that she had heard the sound of harmonica music coming from the apartment during a time Marco apparently was at his workplace. We also got to know that Marco got the newspaper one had to pay for, and we envied him very much for that. We usually tried to find the preceding day's newspaper from the garbage bin, and we resented the fact we could only see the schedule for TV programs that had already been shown.

When after two months we got invited to visit the upstairs apartment, we got to meet Bertolt Hoover for the first time and also got proof that Marco was definitely not poor trash. He asked us over for coffee on Sunday. We didn't usually visit people's homes, and the situation made me nervous. Should I wear a tie? Armin didn't bother himself with such puny details, instead he sat on the couch and probably thought by himself how nice it was that we got to live in a house made of stone. My sister had lived in a wooden house that had burned down a year ago and now she didn't have a roof over her head. We only had to be afraid of the landlord, rather than the forces of nature.

Bertolt Hoover opened the door. He was tall, probably at least one hundred and ninety centimeters; he had a heavy, vacant gaze and in his hand he held a dead rat. We froze. Marco's voice came somewhere behind him:

"Please come in!" We followed the man and the rat that swung to and fro and was very certainly dead. We found ourselves in a living room that had a leather couch. There wasn't even any holes in the couch, even though it was worn. It was very neat. The other thing that caught our attention was a poster that covered most of the wall. It had been printed in flashy colors and it portrayed a _picador_ that is jabbing a lance into the neck of a bull while the bull is charging his horse. Otherwise the living door was scarcely decorated: there was only a wooden coffee table and a TV. Neither of us had really any idea what to think about the poster. Both the bull and the horse looked like they were in pain. Marco came from the kitchen to the living room and told us to sit down with an arm gesture. We obeyed. I watched as Armin fumbled the edge of his shirt, glancing at Marco and Bertolt alternately under his brows.

Marco didn't offer us coffee, but tea instead. The tea bag swam in the mug and changed the water dark brown and bitter. Bertolt didn't drink tea, but took a glass of orange juice. It had already passed twenty minutes since we had arrived but he hadn't uttered a word. The rat had disappeared somewhere. The kitchen radio was on and we could hear soft talking coming from there. All of the kitchenware had been placed neatly in the cupboard; nothing had been left in the sink. The apartment looked like somewhere where happy people lived.

"That poster is rather conspicuous," I said as I reached forward to grab an oatmeal cookie. Marco smiled; it was a sincere, pretty smile.

"I find it somehow peculiar, too. It belongs to Bertolt. Bullfighting fascinates him." We looked again at the _picador_ and the bull, waiting for the lance to thrust into the neck and the man to fall down from horseback. Bertolt didn't say anything but the corner of his lip twitched in a way that one could interpret it as something of a smile. Based on the stuff we heard later it was pretty obvious that he liked generally everything that included hurting animals. We never got to know why he was like that; perhaps he just liked the feeling of having power one got when they followed the pain and sorrow of the weak and needy. Because honestly saying, in this human society we were the ones whose suffering was under the judging gaze of others.

We finished our beverages and read Marco's newspaper together. Bertolt opened the window with slow, deliberated movements; a gust of wind waved the thin, light green curtains and the screams of the jackdaws carried inside. The street looked different from the second floor: friendlier and more distant. The window glasses composed a beautiful, regular grid, and not one of them was broken or mended with cardboard and duct tape. Marco told us about his hometown that was a couple of hundred kilometers away from here. Now that I’d talked with him more I could more clearly hear that he was from the countryside. Bertolt didn't talk about himself at all; he said nothing other than "there's no milk" after looking inside the fridge.

Before going to sleep I discussed the events of the day with Armin. I looked at his sharp rib bones as he changed into his pajamas. He slipped under the blanket and said:

"Think about how lovely it would be if he had an apartment as nice as Marco does."

"I wonder why he lives with Bertolt, though. He never goes outside. He doesn't seem  like a very likable person to me, anyway," I pondered.

"They're probably related, half-brothers or the like," Armin replied and stretched his neck by bending his head from one side to another.

"Based on what? They could well be together." My answer seemed to amuse Armin, and I found the thought somehow strange, too.

"Look, you and me, we are both trash, so we tolerate each other pretty well. But whereas Bertolt is most probably also trash, Marco isn't. Why would he live with a parasite?" he said. His way of thinking vexed me.

"What? If you could somehow make money right now, would you immediately ditch me and take someone else?" I asked him, half serious. Armin looked even more amused; a light glimmered in his eyes. He reached out to give me a kiss on my cheek and then rested his chin on my shoulder.

"I'd make you drink until you're dead drunk and then you'd cry and tell me how you love me over and over again," he said and shook his head in a way it rubbed against my neck.

"And I'd buy us a new window glass," he added finally.

"You're not being serious! You're too smart and practical  a person to do that," I exclaimed. Armin smiled, for he knew I was right.

"We'll be trash for the rest of our lives, for sure." He closed his eyes and I wrapped my arms around him. Armin was so tiny; an adult man and still thin as a sardine. He didn't say anything; he just breathed heavily and finally fell into a deep slumber. I stayed awake for a long time, listening if there would be any noise coming from the upstairs. But everything was quiet.

We managed to visit Bertolt and Marco's apartment several times, but almost all the interesting details remained obscure to us. We knew that Bertolt suffered from insomnia, for he had started to play his harmonica in the middle of the night, and also that in their bedroom they had two beds and a closet with a stuffed weasel on the top of it. Marco had a really great collection of vinyl discs; one day he invited us and we sat the whole day on the floor listening to the records. That was a good day. We also learned that Bertolt could only play one song with the harmonica, but he could play that one really well.  Mrs. May who lived next door to them used to say that it was the best interpretation of _Strawberry Fields Forever_ by The Beatles that she had ever heard. But unfortunately it still didn't tell us more about Bertolt's mysterious past.

The door slot banged heavily as the catalogue of the month for exclusive customers dropped in. Armin ran to open the door and told Annie to step in. She looked dead tired as always, and I hurried to make her a big cup of strong coffee. We sat on the stairs of the hallway and sipped from our mugs.

"Does the baby keep you awake?" I asked her. Her face was pale and the hair was dirty. She lowered her head, to signal agreement apparently.

"I'm probably leaving this town. No child deserves to grow up in a rat hole like this," Annie said after a long silence. She was a small woman, having barely reached her twenties, and yet she had to leave already in search for a better tomorrow. The both of us muttered approvingly. In the end this town was only suitable for jackdaws, those birds of ill omen, that would inhabit all the houses after the humans had left to the city in order to find work. The thought of it haunted me. Should we have left this place ages ago?  But the depression wouldn't last forever. If Annie was still around to see it was something that we didn't know even to this day.

One evening we heard the playing of harmonica through the window of the French balcony; the clear and pure sound poured in alongside the air of April. Naturally we went to look outside, for usually the music sounded faintly through the walls and ceiling. We had never seen Bertolt standing in the window, but now he leaned into the railing and played his harmonica. Marco appeared also on the balcony.  He noticed us beneath himself and smiled and waved at us. They had trouble fitting in there, for the window was pretty small and they were both sturdy men; the kind who had in their childhood home eaten more than margarine on their bread. We all looked at the street; spring smelled in the air and soon one could sleep without a blanket. We went to bed, but we left the window open a crack and heard how Bertolt played the same song five times consecutively, every time as flawlessly as the others.

The next day I woke up once more when Armin rose up and went to open the window in the living room. Clouds covered the sun and the sky looked as if it was filled by smoke; dark as these times or as the wall of an old stone house or the sides of a jackdaw. Marco hurried out from the door of the apartment building at eight thirty-six, like he always did, with light steps and a backpack swinging on his back. He didn't even look at our window, so I didn't see if he was happy or sorrowful or something else altogether. I looked at Armin who sat beside the kitchen table with a thoughtful look on his face. I felt sad for the fact I could not help him, nor could he help me; we were like two castaways waiting for a savior from outside.

We were counting the money we had found on the ground and coin machines in the kitchen when we heard a shot ringing somewhere. For a moment everything fell silent; Armin and I stared at each other. The voices of people started calling each other in the hallway:

"Did you hear it? Who has a gun here?" someone asked.

"Perhaps Mrs. May shot that son of a bitch she's married to," a hopeful-sounding male voice shouted.

"Rubbish. The muzzle pointed at his own head, that's for sure," Fiona the Mad said and stomped down the stairs. Armin's hands shook a little.

"I'll go to make a call," he said after a while, when we had put the money into a tin can that used to have lollipops in it. I listened as he closed the door after himself and I feared a little for him. But then again, in the next block someone had just killed themselves and their family. It wasn't unheard of, just how this life goes. Still I hoped he would come back soon; the apartment felt so much more dull when one was alone in there.

The call took surprisingly long, and Armin returned only after half an hour had passed, with a bag of onions in his hand. He placed the onions on the table and looked very strange to me.

"Is everything all right?" I inquired. He looked at me, as if he was waiting for something.

"Do you remember Eren? He used to live in the same neighborhood back then."

"Yeah, I do." I never forgot people I despised.

"So, you know, he created his own undertaking some time ago, and he actually isn't doing badly at all, and I..." Armin said, falling silent as a shout from the balcony window interrupted him.

"Jean! Armin! Are you there?" We hurried to the balcony window and saw Marco standing there. On his face there was a restless expression, as if he'd seen a ghost. We opened the window to hear him better.

"Bertolt won't open the door. I usually don't have the key with me, for he always lets me in," he said. We glanced at each other; I squeezed the white railing of the balcony. Suddenly Marco focused on something on the ground and bent down to lift the thing. We stretched our necks and saw on his hands the body of a dead jackdaw, wings spread on its sides, as though it had fallen during the flight. One could think it had collided with the window, but jackdaws were too smart for that. And when we looked more closely, we saw that in the center of its chest, perfectly aimed and not a millimeter astray, there was a red hole where a small, silver-colored haul could be seen. The three of us looked up, as if expecting the rest of the jackdaws, those birds of death and misfortune, to all of sudden fall down like rain.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't how clear it is to a foreign reader that this story revolves around the depression of the early nineties. I've pictured the characters to be an allegory to the struggling society of the time, while at the same time being individuals with an enigmatic past and future, too... A big thank you to Aespren for editing my story, once again.


End file.
